OCCRP PROJECT (THE POWER BROKERS) - Romania


PROJECT - The Power Brokers

A Town Without Light

Romanian villages and crumbling industrial towns live without light

 

Romania is one of the largest exporters of power in the Balkans, but many Romanians can't afford to pay their electricity bills.

Last year, more than 330,000 households were disconnected, according to Electrica, the state energy company. In a country of 22.6 million people where one in four lives in poverty, electricity prices are going up too, so even more seem likely to be plunged into darkness.   

Especially hard-hit are neighborhoods on the outskirts of Romania's decaying industrial cities, including Bucharest, and rural villages where whole neighborhoods are without power.  

Lawsuit Gives Insight Into Power Industry

The Vostok Project

Court records the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism has obtained provide a window on how wealthy businessmen came to work together with politicians in privatizing the aluminum company ALRO Slatina, an industrial giant and big energy trader in Romania .

Energy trading in southeast Europe is frequently a murky business conducted on the edge of the law, where ownership of trading companies is hidden behind paper companies set up in exotic Mediterranean and Caribbean islands.

“ The ( British Virgin Island ) companies were used in order to disguise the identity of the ultimate purchaser of the shares in advance of the privatization bid, ” states a judgment in a case involving the principals of ALRO.

Prosecutors Open Inquiry in ALRO case

The National Anti-Corruption Directorate has announced the start of a criminal investigation into the privatization of the ALRO Slatina aluminum plant. ALRO is one of the biggest aluminum producers in Europe and one of the companies that holds an energy trading license in the region.

Reportingproject.net, a project of the Romanian Investigative Center, the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo and a network of freelance journalists, recently revealed the unorthodox methods used by a group of Israeli-Russian businessmen who took over ALRO in 2002. The “Vostok Project” story on the website drew from information in a London Commercial Court document to highlight how the businessmen kept other investors at bay and lobbied Romanian politicians for their influence in getting control over ALRO.

The World Behind the Plug

When Romanians plug their electronic devices into their wall sockets for electricity, they plug into one of the murkiest industries in this country. It's a world where many organizations make huge amounts of money, from God (literally the Romanian Orthodox Church) to the devil (convicted criminals and organized crime).

The people of Romania pay for this world with their energy bills. But increasingly, they are being squeezed by all sides: During 2005, Electrica, the state power company, disconnected 390,000 households, businesses and organizations for nonpayment of bills. Romania is one of the biggest exporters of electrical power in the Balkans but increasingly, they are living in the dark (See Romanian social story)as prices rise and a poor population tries to afford what they've always had.

The situation is the same in the other countries of the region.

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